Robbers take away ATM in Allahabad

Allahabad: Bank robberies, strongroom break-ins, and incidents of cash being stolen from ATMs are not new. A group of robbers here did one better than all that and uprooted and carried away an ATM machine itself!

The bewildering incident came to light on Saturday morning when some people went to withdraw money and found the newly-installed ATM machine of the United Bank of India in Allapur area of the city missing.

"It appears the ATM housed in a shopping complex was uprooted by three-four people late on Friday. We are yet to ascertain the amount of cash stored in the machine," police inspector Vijay Upadhyay told reporters here, some 200 km from Lucknow.

It would be a challenging task for the police to identify the robbers as the ATM cabin had no CCTV cameras.

"The ATM was set up around seven days ago. We have been told that the exercise for deputing a guard and installation of the cameras was yet to take place," another police officer said.